Walking robots: It is all in the hips, researchers says

AFP, TOKYO

Wed, Oct 23, 2013 - Page 15

Robot researchers in Japan have proved what entertainers from Elvis Presley to Miley Cyrus knew all along: The secret is in the hips.

But where Elvis “The Pelvis” gyrated his way to 1950s fame and one-time child star Cyrus attained instant Internet notoriety with her recent awards show “twerking,” the engineers just wanted to make their robots walk more naturally.

A team of researchers at Waseda University’s Humanoid Robotics Institute, near Tokyo, spent hours analyzing how the waist was used to give humans their easy gait.